Excerpts from the confession statement of the two suspects arrested in the ’08 Malegaon blasts

Unfinished stories, goes an old idiom in Ajmer, find their denouement in Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti’s shrine. Perhaps, unfinished investigations do too. Two-and-a-half years after low-intensity blasts ripped apart the courtyard of the centuries-old shrine, the Rajasthan police arrested three men—Devendra Gupta, Vishnu Prasad and Chandrashekhar Patidar. Gupta, an RSS worker, was suspected to have bought the mobile phone and SIM card that triggered off the October 2007 blast in which three were killed. Till their arrest on April 30 this year, the story narrated by the investigators, lapped up by the establishment and reiterated in large sections of the media was that the Ajmer blast was the handiwork of jehadi terrorists.

The SIM-mobile phone-detonated bombs are similar in Ajmer and Mecca Masjid blasts, with RDX-TNT mix in proportion used by the Indian army.

The one troubling question—would jehadis target Muslim devout at a dargah?—can have complicated answers, as the body count at Lahore’s Data Ganj Baksh would testify. But in India, the question wasn’t even deemed worthy of being asked as a reasonable line of inquiry. The needle of suspicion remained firmly and automatically fixed on Islamic terrorists—young men from the community were detained at various stages of the investigation and interrogated at length—until the trail finally led to Gupta and pointed to radical Hindu nationalist groups instead. Says Rajasthan Anti-Terrorist Squad chief Kapil Garg: “We have arrested some people of that religion (Hinduism) and we’re dead sure we’re on the right track.”

May 18, 2007 Doom Friday Mecca Masjid was rocked by a pipe bomb

In Hyderabad too, the CBI team believes it is on the right track, finally, in the Mecca Masjid bomb blasts case. Four men belonging to radical Hindu groups were arrested this May for triggering a high-intensity bomb that went off in the masjid complex in May 2007, killing 14 and injuring some 50. At that time, the Hyderabad police had said it was most likely the work of the Harkat-ul-Jehad-e-Islami (HuJI), backed by local logistical support; some 26 Muslim men were picked up, interrogated, forced to confess and detained for up to six months.

The terror trail in India changed after the Maharashtra ATS’s investigations into the 2008 Malegaon blasts, which alerted them to Abhinav Bharat.

The story followed this script till the CBI found evidence to the contrary: the SIM card-and-mobile phone-detonated explosives packed in metal tubes were strikingly similar to the Ajmer blasts contraption. Tellingly, both bombs are believed to have contained a deadly mix of RDX and TNT, in proportions often used by the Indian army. CBI director Ashwani Kumar told the media that an activist named Sunil Joshi “played a key role in orchestrating the Ajmer blast... and a set of mobile SIM cards that had been used in activation of the bomb-triggers in the Mecca Masjid blast was used again in the Ajmer blast”.

Around the same time, officers of the National Investigating Agency (NIA) filed a chargesheet in a Panjim court accusing 11 people, all Hindus and members of the ultra-right-wing Sanathan Sanstha, of masterminding and executing the October 2009 Margao blasts that killed the two people ferrying the explosives to a local festival. Investigation in Pune’s German Bakery blast this February has run aground after the initial suspicion, detaining and interrogation of suspected Muslim men, some believed to be members of “sleeper cells of jehadi groups” or the Indian Mujahideen (IM). When Abdul Samad was arrested last month, the Maharashtra ATS actively encouraged the understanding that he was the man caught on CCTV cameras in the bakery that night. However, Samad was never charged with the blast and subsequently let off in other cases too.

Later revelation:Suspicion now rests on Hindu terrorists because of the 2008 blasts.

Samjhauta Express Blasts February 18, 2007
68 dead, mostly Pakistanis

Initial suspicion: LeT and JeM were blamed. Those arrested included Pakistani national Azmat Ali.

Later revelation: Police have seen the evidence trail lead to right-wing Hindu activists. Investigators claim the triggering mechanism for the Mecca masjid blast three months later was similar to the one used here. Police are looking for RSS pracharaks Sandeep Dange and Ramji.

Mecca Masjid Blast
May 18, 2007
14 dead

Initial arrests: Around 80 Muslims detained for questioning and 25 arrested. Several have now been acquitted, including Ibrahim Junaid, Shoaib Jagirdar, Imran Khan and Mohammed Adul Kaleem.

Later revelation: In June 2010 the CBI announced a cash reward of Rs 10 lakh for information on the two accused, Sandeep Dange and Ramchandra Kalsangra. Lokesh Sharma arrested.

Later revelation: In 2010, Rajasthan ATS arrests Devendra Gupta, Chandrashekhar and Vishnu Prasad Patidar. Accused Sunil Joshi, who was killed weeks before the blast, is believed to have been a key planner.

Two members of Bajrang Dal—Rajiv Mishra and Bhupinder Singh—were killed while assembling bombs in Kanpur. In April 2006, N. Rajkondwar and H. Panse from the same outfit died under similar circumstances in a bomb-making workshop in Nanded.

2 dead Both accused are members of the Sanathan Sanstha. Malgonda Patil and Yogesh Naik were riding a scooter laden with explosives, which accidentally went off.

Terror trails in India dramatically changed with the Malegaon blasts investigation in September-October 2008. Led by then Maharashtra ATS chief Hemant Karkare, who was subsequently killed on the night of 26/11, the investigation pointed to Abhinav Bharat (AB), an ultra-right-wing Pune-based organisation established in 2005-06, and its members or affiliates. What Karkare’s teams managed to uncover is part of recent history and should have become the basis of examining and monitoring the new phenomenon of Hindutva terror but didn’t.

“For a decade, stories of Hindu terror have been trickling in. Instead of a systematic investigation, it’s been an event-to-event probe so far.”

The Hindutva links to Mecca Masjid, Ajmer and other low-intensity blasts have been in the public domain for close to two years; the signs were visible since 2002-03 when an ied found at the Bhopal railway station was traced back to local Hindutva activists Ramnarayan Kalsangra and Sunil Joshi. They were questioned, but no evidence was found. Yet, it prompted Congress leader Digvijay Singh to declare a Bajrang Dal hand. Later in 2006, there were explosions in the houses of Hindutva activists in Nanded and Kanpur, where ieds were being prepared. Through that year, mosques in several towns in Maharashtra—Purna, Parbhani, Jalna—were rocked by low-intensity blasts; the Nanded one was meant for a mosque in Aurangabad. Recovered with a map of Aurangabad were false beards and Muslim male outfits. That should have been warning enough.

However, till May-June this year, the establishment did not either see these warning signals or chose to ignore them—except for a brief two-month period in 2008 when Karkare led the Malegaon probe. Now, it may be difficult to sustain the denial. “For the last 10 years, stories about Hindu right-wing violence have been trickling out. Instead of a systematic investigation, there has been an event-to-event investigation. The larger story has remained underinvestigated and under-reported,” says Mumbai advocate and human rights campaigner Mihir Desai. The CBI is only now seeking directions from the Union home ministry to see the Ajmer, Mecca Masjid, Malegaon and other blasts in conjunction after there has been no conclusive evidence of the involvement of Islamic groups.

Purohit had provided a link between Malegaon and Mecca Masjid blasts. But the police was chasing HuJI.

Malegaon 2008 provided the much-needed aperture to review the role of Hindutva groups. In September that year, eight people were killed and many injured in a low-intensity blast. The ATS investigation led to Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur, whose motorcycle was used to explode the bomb, and then to 13 others, including self-styled guru Dayanand Pandey and Lt Col Prasad Shrikant Purohit, the first-ever serving officer to be charged. During interrogation, he had disclosed to ATS investigators that he had provided the RDX in the Mecca Masjid blasts too but the ATS was reportedly asked not to make it public as the Hyderabad police had detained HuJI suspects. The similarity with the Ajmer Sharif blasts was evident too.

Malegaon I - September 8, 2006 two bombs attached to cycles went off in a cemetery

The 4,528-page chargesheet filed in the Malegaon case offers insight into the grand design of the Abhinav Bharat and its affiliates. Purohit, the Sadhvi and others had spoken to one another “to avenge bomb attacks on Hindu shrines” and had engineered a series of blasts with the larger ambition to establish a “separate Hindu rashtra”. Abhinav Bharat—whose original avatar was started by Veer Savarkar, later disbanded, and restarted by Himani Savarkar—was set up to achieve this ambition. “This organised crime syndicate,” states the chargesheet, “wanted to adopt a national flag, that is, a solo-themed saffron flag with a golden border...with an ancient golden torch.”

The one crucial missing link, who has been named by all accused in custody as “the man”, is Ramnarayan Kalsangra, an expert at assembling bombs.

Malegaon honoured Karkare by naming a chowk after him—the tribute of a relieved town to a man they believed would have led them to the truth about the September 2006 blasts too. Three bombs had gone off that Friday afternoon near a mosque and cemetery, killing 37 and injuring 100. Typically, Muslim men alleged to be members of the proscribed SIMI were picked up, interrogated and forced to confess. But the chargesheet had several loopholes—main accused Mohammed Zahid, though a SIMI activist, was leading prayers in a village 700 km from Malegaon that day; conspirator Shabbir Masiuallah had been in police custody a month before the blasts, police sketches made on the basis of eyewitness accounts showed clean-shaven men while all accused had kept beards for years.

The Rajasthan ATS now believes that Devendra Gupta, linked to the Ajmer blasts, was in touch with AB members through RSS pracharak Sunil Joshi. Providing the other end of the link, the Maharashtra ATS says the Sadhvi, enraged when Joshi was killed by suspected SIMI activists in September 2007, ordered the 2008 Malegaon blast. Joshi has also been linked to the Samjhauta Express blasts which killed 68 people, all Pakistanis. The evidence has come from Purohit’s reported phone conversation as narrated by an unnamed witness.

Unholy deed A bomb in a schoolbag exploded during iftaar at the Ajmer Sharif
October 11, 2007

Yet, the story has several loose ends, most critical among them being fugitives Ramnarayan Kalsangra, Swami Aseemanand and others. Kalsangra, investigators in Maharashtra and Rajasthan say, was introduced to Devendra Gupta by the Sadhvi and is believed to be an expert at assembling bombs. Finding Kalsangra is crucial since all accused in custody have named him as “the man”. Ajmer, Mecca Masjid, Malegaon, Samjhauta Express and several other blasts are clearly part of a larger story. Only when the CBI puts all the pieces together will the entire Hindutva terror picture emerge, if at all.

If you wish your letter to be considered for publication in the print magazine, we request you to use a proper name, with full postal address - you could still maintain your anonymity, but please desist from using unpublishable sobriquets and handles

Hindu religion, or more aptly the tolerant culture which has evolved over a period of time in the Indian subcontinent, has been resilient enough to survive the persistent onslaught of ancient marauders and modern-day terrorists, be it of the Hindu ultra-right wing variety or the Islamic terror machine (The Mirror Explodes, Jul 19). The Indian people have always rejected this kind of terror. Some timely action by the government will not only help in forming public sentiment against Hindu right-wing nationalists but also stop the needle of suspicion from pointing always towards Muslim masses.

Sushmita Ujjwal, on e-mail

Now that you unabashedly call it Hindu terror, do not jump up in protest when someone else now uses the term Muslim terror. You are only dishing out the garbage the government has fed you.

Rakesh Mehra, New Delhi

It is obvious Outlook is in the business of maligning the majority religion through design—evident in its offensive and disparaging cover—and words provided by the party in power now. With journalists in tow, the dynasty can keep its perch and Sonia can be hold endless durbar. Outlook has now used a religious symbol derisively one time too many. Would it ever have done it with the Islamic crescent or the Christian cross? That would hurt its business.

Priya Madhavan, Rochester

Almost all Hindu terror attacks have come in the wake of Islamic acts of terror, intolerance and hatred. Why doesn’t Outlook talk of those? And it’s a shame that it should have a cover story on Hindu terror on exactly the fourth anniversary of the 7/11 Mumbai train blasts.

Vijay, Arlington, US

Rather than prove one’s secular credentials by naming Hindu acts of terror, why can’t Outlook focus on rooting out terror per se? Terror is terror, it doesn’t have to be classified as Hindu or Muslim.

Ramamurthy N., Chennai

All terrorist activities need to be condemned, regardless of the perpetrators’ religion, since they lead to loss of innocent lives. If the activities of the terror groups can indeed be traced back to the RSS, then it will be a sad day for Indian democracy.

V.N. Venugopal, New Delhi

One only has to read the late Swami Karpatri’s book on RSS and the Hindu religion to know it was an organisation of people totally ignorant of the basic tenets of Hinduism. Or refer to the views of Nirad C. Chaudhuri who exclaimed after Advani met him at his Oxford residence: “What a barbaric ignorance of Hinduism!” Just visit Varanasi and talk to Sanskrit scholars and you’ll find they too hold the RSS brand of Hinduism in utter contempt.

Girish Mishra, New Delhi

You can’t deny the fact that a lot of evil elements in the VHP and Bajrang Dal resorted to violence before and after the explosion of the global Islamic jehad post-9/11. But we can’t support them. For, the monsters you create return to haunt you. Just look at Pakistan.

Vivek, Hyderabad

Now, when Outlook says that Hindu terror is a reality, it is time that all proponents of the Root Cause Theory when it comes to Naxal or Kashmiri terror to find the root cause of why the most tolerant of all communities—the Hindus—resorting to terror.

M.C. Joshi, Lucknow

A person who indulges in terrorist activities is to be punished irrespective of the religion he claims to belong to. What I found revolting, though, was this quote from Jyotirmaya Sharma’s book, “The BJP parliamentarians and the terrorists are from the same tradition and that should worry us deeply.” Mr Sharma forgets that it was a secular party—the Congress—which tapped the base instincts of the Hindus during the anti-Sikh riots.

G. Vijayaraghavan, on e-mail

Kill all Hindus! Or convert them into Christians! Outlook will get its money!

Once again Outlook has ended up looking foolish with its skewed selection of pictures. A boy with an airgun hardly supports the argument, does it? What next: a picture of schoolboys or the boy scouts and their “uniforms”?

M.K. Saini, Delhi

Under Vinod Mehta, truth is not important, only the correct “spin” matters.

Vibhaas, Doha

This story marks a new low in Indian journalism. Congrats.

Narendra, Indore

Since we’re familiar with Islamic terror, Sikh terror etc, the reality of Hindu terror doesn’t come as a surprise. What’s of concern is that we tend to paint terror in shades of ‘Muslim’, ‘Hindu’, ‘Sikh’. There is no way Pragya Singh Thakur or Shrikant Purohit is better than an Afzal Guru or organisations like the Abhinav Bharat any less sinsister than LeT or Hizbul Mujahideen. If our officialdom is shy of recognising Hindu terror only because it weakens its case against Pakistan, we’re bound to lose our battle against terrorism.

P. Prasand Thampy, Thiruvalla

Your cover story didn’t come as a surprise—creating a Hindu punching bag even as a Christian professor in Kerala has his hand chopped off by Islamofascists. The silk-thong-thin logic justifying all the loose talk of a ‘Hindu’ hand seems to be the result of an overnight editorial diktat to divert attention. I am reminded of the way Outlook and other upa-sponsored media cried hoarse over the ‘hand’ behind the killing of Ishrat Jahan and three others near Ahmedabad. Never mind that David Headley has himself stated that she was an LeT squad member. Frogs in the well? When you can’t climb out, pull the others in?

Harshvardhan Kumar, on e-mail

In a nation where I haven’t in my life heard any name other than Bal Thackeray for someone immeasurably communal; only ignorance and denial about SIMI and its ilk and decades of rampant and unchecked Muslim appeasement as state policy; false notions peddled by media about how Islamic terrorism just doesn’t exist in India in spite of the country being in the top three afflicted by the named menace, what a phony stance to take.

Sumant Bhattacharya, Gurgaon

Let us for a moment assume that there is no Hindu terror in India. Will the media give credit to Hindus and Hindu organisations for that? They would still try to portray ltte and Maoists as Hindu terrorists and try to equate them with Muslim terrorists. Looking at the glee in reporting these isolated incidents, I’m sure Outlook would’ve invented Hindu terrorism where none existed.

Sreejith, Bangalore

There’s no such thing as Hindu terror, it’s only a media creation. You can’t go around branding those who shout Bharat mata slogans as terrorists. If you claim to be an Indian, you would damn well shout, ‘Bharat mata ki jai’! Nothing definite has been proved against Pragya Singh Thakur and Lt Col Shrikant Purohit who at best are victims of the pseudo-secular establishment. The lunatic fringe among the Hindus is insignificantly small.

For long, the convention was to blame Muslim terror groups for any inhuman act of violence. Your cover story The Mirror Explodes (Jul 19) showed the other side of the violence, perpetrated by other organisations in the garb of terror strikes by Muslims. For once a media group has tried to unravel the truth through a neutral prism.

"A lot has changed in the nearly four years since the peace of Hyderabad was shattered — first by the May 2007 Mecca Masjid blasts and, three months later, by the twin blasts at the Gokul Chat Bhandar and Lumbini Park.

"Some 20 Muslim boys who were picked up randomly in the aftermath of the blasts and charged with waging war on the nation, have won their freedom. A new term, Hindutva terror, has gained official recognition. The Andhra Pradesh police who, by instinct, habit and training, chased after Muslim “masterminds” and connected the dots between Muslim terror groups, have learnt the hard way that terror does not always have to have the “jihadi” prefix. Indeed, fresh trails have opened up, suggesting that the Muslim boys were deliberately framed.

"And yet, these are at best cosmetic changes that have brought no tangible relief to those falsely implicated in the blast cases. For many of them, the feeling of living on the edge continues; the court may have acquitted them but the label of “terrorist” remains as does the lurking fear that the reprieve is temporary, that the cycle of police visits, interrogation, torture and incarceration can re-commence anytime — if there is a fresh terror attack or even if there isn't."

Reply to kenrajan I was little late to join on this.. firstly the topic is on terrorism & not on religion. terrorism in any sense is wrong either hindu or muslim. secondly if you dont have any knowledge or information about islam, whatever you are talking about islam is all wrong,false & rubbish. if you dont have any knowledge about a religion... dont speak. e.g if i dont know about hinduism i will not speak about it. you must go & check with any good islamic scholar or moulvi to understand what is islam,because a person who is clever can only undertand the islam if he takes it in right way, a nonsense will always take it in a wrong way. whtever u said about our prophet (SWASLM) is all false & rubbish that shows how much knowledge u have about islam. there are 250 crore muslims in world wheras only 60 crore hindus...just think..mean- majority of pepole are wrong. dont sell me tat crab.. secondly whatever clearence u r giving on hinduism that make me feel laugh. think think twice before giving any comment on god & goddess of hindus. pandavas - share ur wife-commitment-& mother says ok then share with 5 men WHAT???? is it acceptable?...Krishna- gopias etc etc... can u do it now in todays era-- impracticable...do they really exist.. for ur information whatever islam & our prophet(that u dont know correctly e.g our prophet never had 22 wives -again for ur information)) has explained 1400 yrs back is fact today & it is also practicable.& thattttt is what is religion. whatever is said in hinduism is either seems fiction or fairy tale- fake. it is based on fake ideology.. i dont know... therfore i will not comment much on that but i have common sense to understand what is right & what is wrong.

Why can't we all realise that in India the secular ideal is innate now,even though the british succeeded in dividing us but they could not break the spirit of being indian. All these riots are only stimulated and simulated for political reasons and one or the other group has its hand in it. For long the convention has been to blame the muslim terror groups for any inhumane act of violence that occurs in any part of the world,without blinking an eyelid. it is sad that the muslims have developed such an ill reputation but nevertheless this story covered by outlook shows the other side of the violence perpetrated by the other organisations in the garb of terror strikes by muslims. for once a media group has also tried to unravel the truth through a neutral prism rather than being coloured as opposed to muslims always.

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